Jagriti recently organised a music and dance festival “Swartaal” in an effort to engage and draw the local community to their art space that has largely been known for staging theatre plays. Bharathanatyam dancer Praveen Kumar gave an elaborate dance recital as a part of this festival. One has to acknowledge the size of this intimate stage in heightening the aesthetic experience of classical dance forms. Bharathanatyam was traditionally performed in temples premises or privately for weddings or local festivals. It is only in the process of modernising the form that it began to be performed in large auditorium. For a form that involves more nuanced movements rather than large spatial movements the proportions of an intimate stage like Jagriti allows for a keen observation offering an engaging experience of the performance for the audience.
Praveen Kumar opened the evening with a Shiva Stuti, describing the beauty of Shiva’s presence – physical as well as spiritual. This piece stood out for the dancer’s attentiveness to the presence of his own body on stage. Owing to the proximity to the dancer, the meditative quality of the dancer’s physicality becomes truly palpable for the audience. Slow in pace and meditative, the Shiva stuti embodied some key dualities in dance such as mind-body and nrtta-abhinaya. The performance moved on to a Krishnaanjali “Jaganmohane Krishna” which a poem composed by Purandaradasaru sung in Ragamalika and performed to Adi Tala. This was a pure abhinaya composition describing the grandeur of the two avataras of Vishnu – Krishna and Vamana. Narrating the hugely popular story of a young Krishna presenting the vision of the whole universe to Yashoda in the narrow space of his mouth as well as the story of Bali Chakravarthy who offers his head as the surface for Vishnu to keep his third and final step, Praveen Kumar’s performance was held together by captivating imagery. The image of Vishnu in Vamanaavatara walking cross legged with an umbrella was an image caught the eye of the audience.
While the Shiva Stuti and Krishnaanjali explored abhinaya in the realm of the godly, the javali and the padam performed in the second half of the event looked at emotions in human contexts. This latter part of the performance was crucial for a variety of reasons. Firstly, because while watching Praveen dance to narratives of love and longing, one could realise how differently we perceive a man on stage compared to a woman on stage and how deprived the dance world is of male bodies . Secondly, the male dancer performing to themes of love and eroticism gives us a rare perspective of masculinity which is otherwise represented as aggressive and dominant.
His recital of Kshetreyya’s padam “Ososi” opened with a crystal clear imagery of a man dressing up to meet his lover. He is seen standing across a mirror sprinkling himself with perfume and prepping up for this much awaited meeting. The story moves to describe how the Nayaka (the hero) is deeply hurt upon seeing his love interest with another man. The Javali “Premato Naato Mataladava” that followed the Padam, was composed in Kanada Raga and performed to Adi Tala. The dancer depicts Krishna who in his effort to convince an angry Gopika into a better mood, is seen fanning her, finishing up the household chores for her and finally triumphs accomplishing her mood. This piece engaged the audience for its storytelling quality. Using detailed imagination, the dancer was able to build up a given situation into a convincing story through actions, gestures and composite imagery.
Overall, it was an apt performance in the context of the Swartaal festival which made an effort to connect people with classical dance and music because Praveen Kumar’s performance gave the audience a perspective of a classical form through a man’s eyes.
